So far, coronavirus has claimed 788 lives in Pakistan as KP is on top on account of Covid-19 deaths which are 284, followed by Sindh with 243 deaths, Punjab 223, Balochistan 27, Gilgit-Baltistan four, the ICT six, and the Azad Jammu and Kashmir one Covid-19 death.
The KP Health Department on Thursday reported 171 new cases taking the total confirmed cases to 5,423 in the province. Nine new deaths were reported (four in Peshawar, one each in Charsadda, Mardan, Swabi, Malakand, and Swat), taking the total to 284.
113 new patients recovered taking the tally to 1,505 in the KP. The number of active cases in KP is 3,634. Sindh coronavirus death toll has hit 243. According to the Sindh Chief Minister, Murad Ali Shah, nine new deaths were reported in the province in the last 24 hours.
The NCOC meeting on Thursday held under the chairmanship of Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar took an in-depth analysis of existing beds, ventilators and other facilities in the hospitals, keeping in view the possible spread of Covid-19 and present available data.
The purpose of the thorough examination of the existing facilities was to collect real-time data and gauge capacity of the hospitals. Umar said that the provinces and the hospital management had the responsibility to ensure verified data of coronavirus-affected patients to take effective measures for mitigating the risk of the outbreak.
He said the management of the provinces and hospitals had an important role to play for providing credible information, where the provinces and the administration were doing an excellent job in this context and it should continue.
He said the implementation of SOPs for non-spread of coronavirus during the past day at the provincial and district-level was encouraging. Asad said the implementation of the SOPs and guidelines for containing the risk of COVID-19 could only ensure public health and safety.
According to the NCOC, during the meeting, the interior minister said he had issued clear instructions the other day to implement the SOPs and guidelines for religious congregations, mosques and markets.
Meanwhile, following the government decision to ease down restriction in the country most of the private offices in the twin cities of Rawalpindi/Islamabad excluding educational institutes, travel agents, restaurants and transportation have opened.
Other than mini buses, wagons and buses; private taxis, carry vans, rickshaws and other means of private transport have also started full fledge operations in the cities, which according to health professionals can result in mass spread of Covid-19 in the country.
It is observed that in most parts of the twin cities and adjacent areas of Punjab, routine life has returned, as majority of the people have started normal activities without taking any precautionary measures.
Health professional while denouncing government policy to deal with Covid-19 has said that apparently the government has adopted herd immunity system, allowing the people to catch as much as Coronavirus as they can, people with better immunity will servive and with weaken will fall prey to the virus.
On the other hand, globally coronavirus cases are rapidly moving upwards as on Tursday global Covid-19 cases reached over 4.46 million, while global corona death toll also jumped up to 299,565 deaths.
More than 42,572 cases have emerged during past 24 hours worldwide with over 1,800 fresh deaths in the past 24 hours.
At present most effected countries include USA with 1.43 million cases with over 85,400 deaths, followed Spain with 272,646 cases and 27,321 deaths, Russia is at third spot with 252,245 covid-19 cases as almost 10,000 new cases were registered in Russia during past 24 hours wherein death tally has reached 2,305, UK 233,151 corona cases and with 33,614 deaths is at fourth position and Italy with 222,104 cases and 31,106 deaths is on fifth position.